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Tag: sailing family

So last week we went to a beautiful park near-ish Sydney’s breath-taking coastal cliffs. It used to be THE Friday morning date for all the coolest (lol) mum in the area. We’d sip coffee and chat and the kids have hours of endless fun in, on and around the trees, greens and bushes there. Over the past month, however, we had boycotted Kimberly Reserve due to bird swooping. Particularly Magpies and Butcher Birds can get quite aggressive during nesting and had attacked a couple of our most little ones several times.We knew it would only be about six week until this yearly season is over. No dramas.

Until today. We returned to the park super-cautiously sussing out whether the birds had calmed down. A couple of hours into the fun, a ranger came to chase us out. He had arrived with a huge ‘Bird Culling’ warning sign. His best man with the shotgun was commissioned by non other than our council. I was so flabbergasted I almost lacked words. Our own tax money spent to fight nature which, apparently, we treasure all so much in this fabulous city of ours.

‘The birds have been a nuisance to humans.’ Really? Isn’t it us who are the nuisance to them, and, in fact, nature in general? Who are we humans to think that we are the greatest species born to dominate all the rest of wildlife? In fact, haven’t we proven quite incapable of safe-guarding our planet since we’ve sort of taken over, given the frightening rate at which we are extinguishing species – and therewith – our very own future?

A Butcher Bird mum nibbling away on our compost waste in our garden

Shortly after the bird-massacre the pesticide guy came in mask and suit to spray every little corner of the park where our babies and toddlers regularly crawl and explore. Of course, with no birds left to eat the poisonous spiders and annoying insects, Man has to try and control it all.

I had thought – or hoped – that humans are slowly reaching a point where we understand that we cannot master nature, but simply have to learn to live in harmony and respect with it. Maybe living on a sailing boat should be compulsory for everyone to hammer what seems obvious to my mob, into all of us. If we don’t all work together on treasuring this shaken planet and trying to reestablish some kind of balance, humankind will soon have to learn the hard way that we are not the master of Mother Nature, but she is. She has been there before us, and will be there after us.

‘And what’s happening to the baby birds in their nest?’ my three year old asks? What am I to say – as I wonder what world are we leaving our children?

A few days ago a friend of ours interviewed us for her book on patriarchal hierarchies. Because with three kids and the whole shibam there’s really no spare time for special decor – and also because at times raw can just be beautiful – here’s the uncut, raw version of her transcript, some of it will appear in print next year. We really enjoyed t as it went far and beyond the usual focus on sailing which we’ve had during most other interviews.

Dini – “All of our friends started climbing the career ladder getting into mortgages and the possession hierarchy and we felt that wasn’t really our plan. We had to do what felt right in our hearts and what we valued most.”

Dini – “With a family even more so we felt that’s what we have to show our children – not something that society might say you should do, as in getting the house and a mortgage and a ‘proper job’. That really didn’t resonate with us.”

Pablo – “In my case I also wanted to do something completely different. You only live once and you have to give it a go for your wildest dreams.”

Background summary, Dini – Left Australia when oldest child was almost 2 and the now middle one was a couple of months old. Sold everything, ended house lease, resigned from jobs.

Pablo – “Those are the things an adventure brings. Getting to the unknown and doing things that you’ve never done before. For me, it’s all about the feelings from the trip – buying a boat, going to amazing places. These were the highlights.”

Dini – “I think you need to be prepared that whatever your dream or adventure is, you need to want it so much in your heart that it’ll push you through very low moments, because they will come for sure.”

Dini – “The obvious highlights are a typical amazing sunny day with a nice breeze and you set off to an unknown island and ideally you make some new friends.”

Pablo – “For me I’ll always remember and I’ll always miss: waking up anchored in some beautiful bay. And the first thing I’d do is to jump in the water, as my coffee to wake me up. How amazing is that! Jumping in the water, that’s how I started my day. It cannot be a bad day because it started in the best way.”

Dini – “I’d swim to the beach, do my yoga, go for a run… and a couple of times I’d come across these ruins, especially in Turkey, that in Australia would be THE national monument because they were so beautiful, so well maintained and so OLD – but because there’s so many of them it’s not even a tourist attraction… just those moments that you totally don’t expect.”

Dini – “When you get a beautiful sail and you’re in tune with the wind and the waves, just with nature. It’s sounds quite romantic actually, you always live in tune with nature when you live on a boat. But a part of it can be quite exhausting, because if you get a few days of strong winds you might not be able to get off the boat or you’re restricted in what you can do next. But when it aligns it can be really beautiful as well. And of course the sunrises and sunsets at sea….

P – “When we were in the middle of the Med, crossing for example from Malta to Turkey, at some point it’s just water. You don’t see land anywhere. You don’t see boats. It’s just your little boat in the middle of the ocean. And you know underneath you there’s nothing but 10km of water. You feel humble, like you’re such a little thing in the world.”

D- “And at the same time empowering because you have to be so self-sustainable. All our energy came from wind and solar (except when we had to run the diesel engine) – that’s how our kids understand it. You are your own little world. You need to make sure you have enough food. We made our own water through osmosis. It’s very scary and adventurous but at the same time very empowering and very humbling. Wildlife is always another big highlight. You don’t feel like a superior human species, as we often think when we live in a city. We’re not.”

P – “You realise when you go back to normal civilisation, in a country like Australia, we have it so easy. We take everything for granted: water, electricity, food, shelter. It makes you appreciate little things in life. I think that’s why we have some sort of crisis in our time because we just don’t appreciate a lot of things that we take for granted.”

D – “Also having time… on the boat, so often we would just sit there as a family, we might read, we might play games, we might talk, we might just sit there – that’s something you never do in land life. I don’t know any family that just sits in the garden and spends time together. People are always rushing.”

D – “It’s like the ocean: the waves of the ocean slow you down, and you’re forced to adjust to it. Maybe at the beginning you fight it and you still want to do a thousand things, and then after a while you have to give in because it’s the rhythm of nature.”

P – “Most people are scared to follow their dreams.”

P – “People create their own prisons. You are a prisoner of your own freedom. I think it’s about liberating yourself from your own prison. Your own baggage plays a big part of that. It’s a mental game.”

D – “To put things into perspective, they say there are about 10,000 live-aboard sailing boats out there at any one time of those just 1% are families – so there’s only about 100 families cruising the world like we did. So we were nuts!”

P – “Me being from Argentina – having instability is normal. That is what I got from my parents; they were in some bad economic situations but they showed me you can always get up and come back.”

D – “People slide into a mortgage because in our culture you need to own your own house. The way people talk is that the bigger the house you have, the more you must have achieved or the cleverer you must be.”

P – “Society is telling you that if you want to climb the hierarchy and you want to be at the top, you have to have a lot of material possessions. You need to have the big house and your wife needs to drive the latest 4-wheel drive BMW/Mercedes.”

D – “It definitely does exist, this hierarchy, especially in terms of possessions – but there is always the option to opt out. Maybe because we grew up in different cultures, it’s easier for us to step out and see that, that you don’t have to buy into it.”

D – “I’ve got three kids, I don’t have the energy to start a Che Guevara-style revolution. But I feel that it’s a silent revolution just being a living example that you can live a different life, rather than aggressively fighting against it.”

P – “I think a lot of people are realising that there’s nothing there in possessing, or climbing up the ladder in the corporate world, or trying to get the mortgage for the biggest house. I think a lot of people like us can see there’s emptiness there and it’s not going to fulfil your spirit.”

D – “People have realised there’s limits with possessions. They don’t really make you happy.”

D – “The more people have, the more fear they have of losing it. The less material stuff you have, the more you can just go with the flow of life and see where it takes you. And get all these wonderful surprises that otherwise you’d miss out on.”

P – “If you get rid of material things that you don’t actually need, you will feel freedom somehow, you will feel lighter with more options.”

D – “For example, we bought a boat with a relatively low budget compared with many other sailing families and we never worried about getting robbed – and our lock didn’t even work properly. Whereas we have quite a few friends who have boats worth 15 times as much as our boat, and talking to them I felt they actually enjoyed their experience much less than us because they were always worried about people kidnapping their kids or stealing things from their boat. So in a way it was freeing living on a boat that always looked like the poorest in the

Life in the city goes on. Although Sydney’s pace is tranquil compared to London, Tokyo, Honk Kong and New York, it’s still easy to get caught up in endless to-dos and – out here in my beloved Bondi – supposed ultra-spiritual musts, like daily instagramable moments close to falling of a cliff; yoga-marketing; engaging in the ultimate diet trend… you name it. I’ve kicked it all – back to basics for me these days, back to my own practise, back to old-style meditating. It might seem boring, but man, it keeps me grounded in this fast-moving world.

Today I had my first 6am flying yoga class since Indi was born with my personal very favourite teacher and, in my opinion, best kept secret in Sydney, followed by my first coffee in months – was flying for the rest of the day. Total vata-aggravation, not sustainable, but fab for a day. Needed to balance it out with a glass of red just then as we grabbed pizza for improvised Friday dinner. In a nutshell, all good here.

Every morning I still get up in disbelieve how ridiculously easy land-life in a Western country is. It feels like waking up in Disney Land every day… wonder when even Disney Land is going to get boring (and I know it will, but I’m not there yet!). Until then, namaste, be grateful for what you have. And dream. Dream big – because what more is there to do?!?

A friend sent me a scientific article this morning which seemed to prove how optimistic feelings and moods influence positively on the body’s physcial health and well-being. More specifically, the feeling of being in awe was linked to reducing inflammation in the body.

It’s interesting how science more and more proves what is pretty obvious when you live ‘in tune’. Sailors would know that despite the challenges of living among the most hostile environments, there’s not much to beat sunrises at Sea. Parents would know there’s not much that beats that first little smile or gaze of a newborn. Anyone, who embraces live to the fullest would know, that being in awe can be a daily, casual thing which enhances our health and well-being on so many levels. So turn off your device (I’d say it’s pretty unlikely to find that feeling through a screen…) and look around you. Notice something to be in awe of?

Sunday morning writing time. FIRST readers in Malta can look forward to the September issue which will include an insight into my personal journal of crossing the Australian Outback. (Blog readers will find a copy on my Media page a few months down the track). Finishing the article, I tumble across a quote which stayed with me from a visit to one of the remote Aboriginal communities out there in the vast, red land . An obvious fact which unfortunately has become less obvious in the obscure and crazy materialistic world we live in:

We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love and then, we return home.